Years ago Aaron Renn coined an urban paradigm that he labeled “the new donut.” The old donut, of course, is one that many of you will know well: poor downtown (hole in the donut) and wealthy suburbs (ring around the hole in the donut). This is… Read More
Earlier this week I deleted my Facebook account. If we were friends on the service and you can no longer find me, this is the reason why. Part of why I did this certainly had to do with privacy. I read Brian Acton’s (WhatsApp cofounder)… Read More
A friend of mine flipped me this New York Times article today talking about the rapidly growing interest in proptech and about Opendoor – a topic and a company that I have written about many times before on the blog. Here’s a snippet about proptech:… Read More
Today, the Slate Canadian Real Estate Opportunity Fund I announced a new name for its 40 storey tower at 700 2nd Street in Calgary: Stephen Avenue Place. It also announced that it has partnered with Oliver & Bonacini Hospitality and Concorde Entertainment Group to create… Read More
Earlier this week it was announced that Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have resigned from the company. Supposedly it had to do with weakening independence from the parent company, Facebook. But I’m not really in a position to comment on the specifics. Fred… Read More
This is an excellent talk by NYU professor Scott Galloway about Amazon, online grocery, and many other aspects of the retail landscape. The bits about Amazon’s scale and reach are fascinating. There is about 30 minutes of him speaking quickly and then another 15 minutes… Read More
Over the years on this blog I have posted the occasional “Project Profile”, where I have shared a noteworthy development project, an interesting piece of architecture, or some other kind of project that I thought would interest all of you. Everything is now a project. This… Read More
I am a fan of the double opt-in introduction. I am guilty of not doing it, but I’ve been hearing of this approach from a few people and I think it makes a lot of sense. And it is probably only going to make more… Read More
Things are busy right now as we get ready to unveil Junction House this fall and so I’m a bit behind on my news and reading. I just finished reading Alex Bozikovic’s Globe article on BIG’s new KING Toronto project (official name). It is an… Read More
São Paulo, and Brazil more broadly, are near the top of my list of places that I want to visit. Starting in the 1930s, Brazil became an early adopter of modern architecture with projects like the Ministry of Education and Health Building. It was one… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 